More than 1500 ISAF and Afghan National Army troops based at the Multinational Base in Tarin Kowt bade farewell on the 9th June, to Sapper Darren Smith and Sapper Jacob Moerland who were killed in action on the 7th June.
Troops lined the road to the airfield in a slow march procession with the caskets mounted atop SASR Long Range Patrol Vehicles and escorted by an Australian Light Armoured Vehicle, saluted by the troops as it passed by.
Two Rocks family, Chris and Carol Sloan’s son, Nick, aged 25, is a soldier serving in Afghanistan. He was selected to be a pallbearer for combat engineers, Darren Smith and Jacob Moerland, who were killed by a Taliban improvised explosive device while on a foot patrol in Oruzgan province.
It was Australia’s first multiple fatality on the battlefield since the Vietnam War. To date, the Australian death toll in this war is sixteen. More than 1,830 coalition troops have now died in the fight and these latest fatalities happened in the week when Afghanistan became the longest war in United States history.
Australia has 1,500 troops, mainly employed in training Afghan soldiers. Nick joined the army, combat engineers, in 2004, and is on his first tour of Afghanistan.
Nick Sloan, was based in Sydney, at Holdsworthy Barracks until he was transferred to Afghanistan last March for an eight month stint.
Chris and Carol Sloan are very proud of their son and said: “We send him our love and safe return.”
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